(no subject)

A while back I discovered a site that every day reposts an entry from Samuel Pepys' diary (there's a feed of it here at pepysdiary). The entries appear in real time (one day each day, at the end of the day), so it's almost as if it's a window into the LiveJournal of the 1660's. It even has much the same content as a modern-day blog.

Anyway, yesterday's entry has a description of some sort of collection of water pumping machines at St James's Park (perhaps the 1660 version of a civil engineering project or some sort of demonstration?), with this wonderful description of an Archimedes' Screw:

...which is one round thing going within all with a pair of stairs round; round which being laid at an angle of 45 deg., do carry up the water with a great deal of ease.

It took me a few moments to work out what this was - I never would have thought to describe it as a spiral staircase around a cylinder, and yet that's exactly what an Archimedes' Screw is. The 17th century grammar is vaguely reminiscent of xkcd's Up Goer Five as well.

Some moolah for ya sky rocket?

Today's random discovery is that there exists ATMs which speak in Cockney rhyming slang, which will happily contact your rattle and tank to give you some sausage and mash.

This brought to you by a snippet in issue B of Curio City, an absolutely fascinating folded map/leaflet/thing about weird and wonderful bits of London. My sister got me issue A as a birthday present a while back, and last weekend I finally got round to ordering the later issues before they vanished from their online shop.